F ³: The Weirdest Summer

Yesterday afternoon I sat at a picnic table in the shade as my youngest and I enjoyed snowballs with ice cream on top at Opie’s in Catonsville. The weather was perfect. The moment was perfect.

“You know…” I began - - more for myself, I think - - “This has been the most normal summer afternoon after what has been the weirdest summer of my life.”

We had started with a visit to Scrap B’more, the creative reuse store for art and craft supplies. (I first wrote about them in 2018.) Yes, they are still going strong but they’ve moved to a new location in Pigtown. They were doing a brisk business while we were there and I suspect many of the young women we saw were teachers. I found a decent used watercolor set and M. walked out with a collections of beads, buttons, bangles, and stencils.

I made a mental note as we walked back to the car that I should make an appointment to donate some of my craft stash that I don’t need. It’s such a great way to keep these materials out of a landfill.

From there we headed to Opie’s for snowballs. I have a soft spot in my heart for this place because it was our kid’s discovery, introduced to us. There’s something particularly sweet about having one’s offspring declare, “We need to go to this cool place I found.” It’s a passing of the torch moment, in a way.

In an ordinary summer this would have been just a nice day. But this has not been an ordinary summer.

I guess having your ceiling collapse puts your life in perspective.

This summer has been a rollercoaster of emotional, physical, and logistical challenges. I’ve learned a lot about what’s important. It is hard to lose an entire room’s worth of material possessions. It’s a lot easier to accept when you realize that someone you love was seconds away from bearing the weight of all this destruction.

I’m still processing.

So yesterday was more than a nice day in an ordinary summer. It was a celebration that I still have moments and experiences and people who bring me joy.

And good folks like you to share it all with.

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